Tube worm lights up the undersea night with vitamin B

This is not a fight with light sabres or a biological sample made visible with glowing dye. It's a real living phenomenon: this parchment tube worm's whole body fluoresces bright green when exposed to a certain wavelength of light.

What's more, prod it and it expels puffs of mucus that generate bright blue light. The tube worm builds a protective home from the same mucus, hardened into a papery "U" shape that protrudes up through sea-floor sediment to admit water and prey.

The worms look much more prosaic out of the water (Image: Scripps/UCSD)

A new study has pinpointed exactly how the worm's mucus lights up the seas. Led by Dimitri Deheyn of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, it has identified the light-active component as vitamin B, otherwise known as riboflavin, although the exact chemical form that makes the blue glow has yet to be identified.

Deheyn speculates that this novel chemical reaction might act as a lure for prey or a deterrent to predators.

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